Making sense (and, sometimes, nonsense) out of Current News, Issues, Politics

Tuesday, November 15, 2016

Obama's Latest "Green" Legacy: Destruction of Wilderness Areas.

For decades, Democrats and environmentalists have blocked and drilled for oil and gas in the almost humanly uninhabitable and so-called pristine land known as the Alaskan Arctic Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). The fear was that any drilling would disrupt fragile wildlife in the area. In 2015, President Obama finalized a ban on all drilling in the "Refuge" by expanding the span of land covered by the ban to 12 million acres.

But, this concern over preserving wildlife appears to be gone to the wind (literally) because Obama has now finalized plans to allow wind farms and solar power plants on millions of acres of federal land in our Western states. Already, 60 renewable projects are approved to begin before he leaves office.

The problem with wind and solar is that they, themselves are killers of wildlife. Birds, by the thousands, die each year by either being burned to death at solar collection farms; or hacked to death in the blades of wind turbines. Worse, is that many of the birds being killed are protected raptors such as the Bald Eagle. Additionally, the abnormal ground vibrations and noise from wind turbines have caused still births and birth defects in animals who either live or are confined near these operations.

Some environmentalists are now seeing the light that "green" energy is not nearly as "green" as they would like. But, their silence all these years has now resulted in massive wind and solar projects on once-protected lands. This is thanks to Obama trying to cement a legacy with the climate change people. The fact is, that drilling for oil and gas has far fewer deadly affects on wildlife than wind and solar. I suppose we'll just have to chalk up the lives of the wildlife being killed by these technologies as a small (?) price to pay for saving the planet. Anyway, those dead creatures can't vote, so what the hell! Let's just do it and save the planet anyway!

Lastly, here are the Federal regulations for killing a Bald Eagle:

The 1972 amendments increased civil penalties for
violating provisions of the Act to a maximum fine of $5,000 or one year
imprisonment with $10,000 or not more than two years in prison for a
second conviction. Felony convictions carry a maximum fine of $250,000 or two years of imprisonment.

Maybe this should be applied to Barack Obama for being "repeatedly" complicit in the killing of these majestic birds!